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China gears up in case of Korean War
China gears up in case of Korean War - The China Post
BEIJING -- China appears to be stepping up its military preparedness in case of conflict on the Korean peninsula.
Sparking speculation were the separate inspection trips made by two top generals last month to Shenyang, one of the country's seven military regions.
General Guo Boxiong and Gen Xu Caihou are vice-chairmen of the Central Military Commission (CMC), China's top military body, which is chaired by President Hu Jintao himself.
The People's Liberation Army (PLA) Daily reported the generals' visits. The pro-Beijing Wen Wei Po noted that it was rare that both CMC vice-chairmen should inspect the same military region within a month.
It also noted that the PLA newspaper did not refer to Shenyang as a military region, or jun qu, but as a theater, or zhan (warfare) qu.
Besides Shenyang, the other six military regions are headquartered in Beijing, Jinan, Nanjing, Chengdu, Lanzhou and Guangzhou, respectively. Each region covers a number of provinces, called military districts, and its formation is to handle threats coming from specific directions.
For example, the Shenyang military region covers the north-eastern provinces of Heilongjiang, Jilin and Liaoning, which border the Korean peninsula and Russia's Far East, and so the region deals with threats coming from those areas. It bore the full brunt of the Korean War in the 1950s.
In times of war or in near-war situations, a military region can be upgraded to theater status and expanded to cover adjacent military regions. In such an event, the troops' combat capability is beefed up and the level of the military alert is also raised. Part of the civilian economy within the region can also be geared up to meet war purposes.
The conversion of the Shenyang military region to a theatre indicates that China is taking the possible threat of conflict seriously.
According to the PLA Daily, Gen Guo was accompanied by Maj-Gen Qi Jianguo, assistant to the chief of general staff of the PLA, and Maj-Gen Gu Junshan, deputy director of the General Logistics Department of the PLA.
Gen Xu was accompanied by navy commander Admiral Wu Shenli and inspected the North Sea fleet based in Dalian.
Their trips were meant to ensure that the PLA was combat-ready to cope with threats from the peninsula.
Gen Guo urged front-line military commanders to be prepared for new situations developing in the region.
The PLA Daily did not elaborate but a military analyst told Phoenix TV that the new situations refer to two dangerous developments.
First, the sinking of the South Korean warship Cheonan in March, which has since spurred military brinkmanship in the region.
The United States and South Korea are planning to hold joint naval exercises that may involve the deployment of aircraft carrier USS George Washington in the Yellow Sea, right at China's doorstep. With a radius of action extending over 1,000km, this means that China's major cities in the northern coastal area, including Beijing, would fall within the U.S. firing range.
The Cheonan sinking also led Russia to mount a massive military exercise in the Far East Vostok 2010 the largest since the former Soviet Union collapsed in 1991.
China sees potential threats coming from both land and sea.
Second, North Korea's succession problem has created uncertainty in the country itself.
During his recent visit to China, North Korean leader Kim Jong Il reportedly urged China to give its support to his youngest son Jong Un, whom he had picked to succeed him.
The request puts Beijing in a dilemma. Most Chinese would be loath to see the Kim family transfer power in this feudalistic way. But Beijing cannot afford to rebuff the North Korean leader.
Kim's frail health has been closely watched by the outside world since he reportedly suffered a stroke nearly two years ago. His death, when it happens, would present China with problems.
With the Cheonan incident coming at a time of uncertain power succession, Beijing has to be prepared, especially militarily, for any contingencies.
If a war does break out then it will be a show time for China+Pakistan+Russia against USA+S.Korea+Japan+India.
